


The Laughter Number Six

by Filigranka



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 07:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: Natori's actor career is in grave danger. The threat? Ayakashi, of course.





	The Laughter Number Six

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psychomachia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychomachia/gifts).



Natori’s forte was acting, hiding his worries behind thousands of pretty smiles, one for every situation possible. One for introductions, one for welcoming long-time-no-see acquaintances, one for the film-crew, one for his fellow actors, one for the directors, and another, a little more submissive, more professional, for the producers. Six different smiles for fans. Twelve different ones for media. Hundreds of different smiles for the characters he played. One, very special and almost honest, for Natsume Takashi.

And yet now, he had run out of smiles. He didn’t have one for “walking into the filmset kitchen for coffee with the co-starring actress, both terribly tired – they needed to film this scene at dawn, make-up and other preparations started in the middle of the night – and stumbling on the half-dozen little ayakashi, stealing food from the small, portable fridge.”

They disappeared, panicked, upon seeing them, leaving half of the products behind, thrown on the floor, some of the snack bags half-opened. His colleague frowned.

‘What has ha—‘

‘It must have been some animal.’ Natori crouched to clean up the mess. ‘Tanuki, perhaps? They’re getting smarter with every year, more accustomed to people and technology, really, I wouldn’t put opening the fridge past them, I’ve read about them in the paper recently...’

His babbling and his smile – number fifteen, transforming him into a charming, slightly nervous, and eccentric, bookish young man – seemed to convince her. Tanuki, yes. The shadow she thought she had seen must been an animal, too. Perhaps somebody had left the door open, it had come inside, hidden itself and then, when someone else locked the kitchen properly, it become trapped. Or something like that.

‘Or something like that,’ he sighed later, in his bed, caressing his lizard-mark absentmindly; at the moment it was nesting itself on a crook of his neck. ‘Let’s just hope they are clever enough to leave now, after they saw an exorcist.’ He had the feeling the lizard was silently laughing at him. ‘Well, yeah, me. I’m an exorcist. They should have felt it and left the set alone. I’d really, really hate to work two jobs at once.’

 

No such luck. Of course.

Instead of leaving, several ayakashi appeared on the set during his big love confession scene. Appeared, and tried to get his attention. At least, that’s probably what they intended.

There could hardly be any other explanation as to why they would sit near the cameras, right before his eyes, jumping, clasping hands, waving tentacles and wings, making faces, stumbling over each other, giggling... In short, doing everything to make it impossible for Natori to play the usually solemn, but now embarrassed and slightly terrified, businessman in the middle of a confession of love.

He tried to look everywhere else but in the direction of the ayakashi, but damn it all, they stood right under the camera, and the director was dead-set on this particular angle. He tried not to laugh, but these particular ayakashi seemed to be natural-born comedians – and their round, almost-human shapes made it impossible not to smile at their tomfoolery. They were currently parodying the dance scene which had been filmed yesterday: a few of them were jumping and turning around, while the others were pretending to record them, standing nearby with comically serious expressions.

It was too much. Natori’s lips turned up of their own volition, and a second later, just before the director’s shout broke the silence, he giggled.

 

Natori was ashamed. Utterly, completely, totally, absolutely ashamed. So much hard work was wasted because of his lack of control! After a few more failed attempts, the director announced a break – they were, fortunately, a bit of ahead of schedule – and Natori could only hope he would get a chance to explain himself later, and that the incident wouldn’t hurt his career or, heaven forbid, make it into the gossip media.

He also hoped he would come up with some reasonable or at least sane-sounding lie. But ah, he was an actor, after all. “An actor in more than one way” – ha, it had a nice ring to it. Much nice than “a liar”.

‘Excuse us, Your Eminence exorcist!’

He blinked. Ayakashi stood by his legs, pulling his trousers.

‘My Eminence?’ he repeated, bewildered.

‘You Highness exorcist? Your Grace? Lord exorcist? Sir exorcist?’; It was hard to make out the words and sentences from the choir of little, high-pitched voices. ‘We haven’t met – don’t know – an exorcist in a long time – the current form of address – apologies – please, forgive us, Your Holi—‘

‘That’s enough,’ he hissed quietly, taking a quick look around; none of his colleagues were there, fortunately. ‘Just call me “exorcist”. “Mister exorcist”, if you need a title. Why are you bothering me?’

‘The scene – confession – the seal – the terrible, terrible spirit – tall and huge like glass human mountains – flames in his eyes and breath – it’s cruel – eats other ayakashi and human alike – cruel – and the protective barrier could be broken – will be broken – with a love confession by someone with spiritual power – oh you holy – mister exorcist you mustn’t say it – cruel spirit will destroy this land and all its little ayakashi – eat all people – you cannot! – help us – mister exorcist!’

He massaged his temples. Beautiful. He hadn’t sensed anything strange on the film set, nothing stranger than the usual... thickness of air, the tension in his bones, typical for all older locations. People’s emotions tended to linger, sometimes even for centuries – and film sets, like any artistic endeavor, were always full of emotions and quirks. It might have confused his senses. He never had been especially powerful, after all.

And he didn’t think the ayakashi were lying. Their fear was too real, almost palatable, sticking to his skin like threads of cotton candy.

‘So.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There’s a powerful ayakashi sealed somewhere in this film studio, and the love confession scene we’re recording is enough to tear down the protective barrier? Right? Because I’m an exorcist and the seal could be broken by the words of love spoken by someone with... substantial spiritual power?’

The choir of voices was dazzling, again, but it sounded like they mostly agreed. Great. Natori couldn’t risk breaking and then re-establishing the seal in the middle of the screening, in the presence of dozens of people. For once, they might think him crazy. For another thing, if the spirit really was so dangerous, it might hurt, maim or kill them. Natori’s career – both of his careers – would be finished.

He doubt he would be able to explain this all to the director, though. And he wasn’t Takashi, hadn’t become the exorcist to help ayakashi. Deep down he wasn’t even sure if he’d become one to help people. Perhaps the only person he truly had planned to help had been himself.

Well. But he was a decent actor and a great liar. Perhaps he would be able to fool the whole world, himself including, this one time.

Again.

 

‘...And I’ve been thinking about it the whole time, that the smiling and nervous laughter are one way of conveying his conflicted nature, the tension so high it could be only broken via comical methods... and subverting the genre clichés, the audience expectations, making my characters seem more human thanks to this, less like a walking archetype... Yes, I think critics will love it. Absolutely. They waited for someone to break the genre boundary for so long... Yes, exactly.’ Natori nodded enthusiastically; the director was obviously warming up to his script changes. ‘Instead of a teary love confession he waits... opening and closing his mouth, yes, the tension will rise... he tries to speak, but can’t form the proper words... the whole audience will catch their breaths.. and then he starts laughing hysterically, not like a suited, bottled-up man, acting contrary to everything we already saw of him in the film... Exactly, breaking the gender norms, showing true human nature, beneath all these cultural binaries and divides... And then she understands, despite everything, because it’s a film about true love, and true love doesn’t need words, right?’

‘Right.’ The director brightened. ‘That’s a great idea, I think we’ll use it. And then... and then at the end...’ He mused for a moment. ‘Well, I think we have enough avant-garde for one scene. At the end, they kiss.’

 

The ayakashi hid their faces in their hands. ‘She’s going to eat him, eat him, devour him to the smallest bones... Oh. She didn’t. He must taste foul!’

The seal – if there was a seal to begin with; Natori still didn’t feel anything – definitely didn’t break. No powerful spirit or monster appeared. And at the end, they kissed, which as it turned out would even bring them a nomination for a mildly prestigious reward. And if Izumi noticed Natori giggling hysterically into her shoulder afterward, she never mentioned it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Billion thanks to I. for beta! <3


End file.
